PhD. Tamara Llano Astuy is awarded with the 2018 extraordinary prize of doctorate of the University of Cantabria

On January 25th, 2019, the researcher and assistant professor PhD. Tamara Llano Astuy of the Chemistry and Process & Resources Engineering Department, and member of the Green Engineering and Resources (GER) group, received the honourable extraordinary prize of doctorate in the act of Santo Tomás de Aquino. The doctoral thesis entitled “Developments in a sulphite pulping process for the valorisation of its carbohydrate resources within the biorefinery concept” was supervised by PhD. Alberto Coz Fernández. The thesis evaluates the possibilities of producing fermentable substrate stream, transforming an acid sulphite pulping industry located in Cantabria (Spain) into a modern lignocellulosic biorefinery. The main objectives of the thesis were: (i) the development of several physico-chemical characterisation methods (including chromatographical analysis) of the samples, (ii) the mass balance of the main components at industrial scale, (iii) the study of the sulphite digestion stage, showing the effect of the most important parameters on the final dissolved sugars, and (iv) the implementing of several detoxification techniques (overliming, adsorption, ion exchange and liquid-liquid extraction) in order to separate the inhibitors of the sugar components. In addition, this research proposes some recommendations and improvements in the factory in order to valorise the residual streams, not only enhancing the separation of sugars from the rest of wood constituents for fermenting purposes, but also maintaining the quality properties of the main product, dissolving pulp.